I cannot stress enough that I received the lion's share of my knowledge from my father-in-law, John's, Western Civilization and Survey of English History classes. He teaches at Maple Woods Community College in Kansas City, MO. Enroll in one of his courses, if you ever get the chance--he's the best!! Or at the very least, visit his Western Civilization sites (they include "Student Notes" and everything!!).
THESE TIMELINES WERE BEGUN FOR MY OWN PERSONAL USE. THESE TIMELINES SHOULD NOT BE USED AS RESOURCES FOR ANY KIND OF RESEARCH PAPER. THESE TIMELINES SHOULD ONLY BE USED AS AN AID TO GIVE A "JUMPING OFF POINT." THESE TIMELINES ARE NOT PEER-REVIEWED; THEREFORE, THEY ARE SUBJECT TO ANY NUMBER OF UNINTENTIONAL AUTHORIAL TYPING ERRORS AND/OR MISUNDERSTANDINGS. REMEMBER, INTERNET SOURCES (WITH FEW EXCEPTIONS) CANNOT BE RELIED UPON AS DEFINITIVE SOURCES!!
Because I did these timelines initially only for my own personal use, I have paraphrased and quoted without citing as one should for a research paper; therefore, anyone using these timelines should consult the sources listed on the Historical Timelines Page.
DO NOT QUOTE FROM THESE TIMELINES!! ALWAYS DOUBLE-CHECK MY WORK!!!!
Germanic/Austrian (Including Holy Roman Empire) Peoples:
Charlemagne (Charles I) (742-814), King of Franks (768-814), Emperor of West (800-814)-Holy Roman Empire begins at the end of his conquests-crowned Holy Roman Emperor on Christmas Day of 800
Louis I (Louis the Pious) (778-840), Emperor of the West (814-840)-splits his empire between his sons which leads to lots of fighting which is finally settled by the Treaty of Verdun (843): Louis the German got Germany (East Franks); Lothar got Alsace, Lorraine, Burgundy, Low Countries, Provence, and most of Italy (Central Portion); and Charles the Bald got France (West Franks).
Holy Roman Empire originated at coronation of Otto I (962) and ends at renunciation of imperial title by Francis II (1806)-generally the HRE is Germany, Austria, Bohemia, Moravia, parts of N. Italy, and Belgium (til 1648-Netherlands and Switzerland). Also ruled Hungary though outside of Empire. Flanders, Pomerania, Schleswig, and Holstein were in the Empire but ruled by foreign princes.
Crusades (1095-1291)
Inquisition--1233 until 1800s (mostly in Southern France, Northern Italy, Papal States, and Germany)
Hapsburgs are ruling house of Austria from 1282 to 1918 and Holy Roman emperors 1438-1530 (Charles V divided his dominions between his sons, Philip II of Spain and Ferdinand I)
Great Schism (1378-1417)-Division in Roman Catholic Church (Two then three popes claimed to be legitimate)
Johannes Gutenberg (1390 or 1400-1468) German Inventor
Gutenberg invents movable type printing press 1450
Gutenberg Bible @1457
Copernicus (real name=Mikolaj Kopernik) (1473-1543) Polish astronomer
Martin Luther (1483-1546) German religious reformer
Luther's 95 Theses 1517
Charles V (1500-1558), Holy Roman Emperor (1519-1556), King of Spain as Charles I (1516-1556)
Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) German Astronomer/Physicist
Thirty Years War (1618-1648) Protestant German princes, French, Swedish, English, and Denmark vs. Hapsburgs and Catholic princes of Holy Roman Empire
Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit (1686-1736) German Physicist
Daniel Bernoulli (1700-1782) Swiss Physicist
War of Spanish Succession (1701-1714)
Struggle for the Spanish throne. War pits France, Spain, Portugal, Bavaria, and Savoy vs. England, Holland, and most of the German states.
Frederick William I (1688-1740), King of Prussia (1713-1740)
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) German Philosopher
Frederick II (Frederick the Great) (1712-1786), King of Prussia (1740-1786)
Codified new Prussian code, Instituted many reforms
War of Austrian Succession (1740-1748)
Austria vs. France, Prussia under Frederick II (Frederick the Great), and Spain. Due to Austrian Maria Theresa's succession to the Hapsburg dominions.
French supported Spanish claim to part of Hapsburg domains.
1st Silesian War (1742)
Frederick the Great occupies Silesia in 1742 (taking it from Austria).
2nd Silesian War (1744-1745)
French and Prussians defeat Austrians
Seven Years War (1756-1763) Mostly over power in the colonies
French, most of German states of Holy Roman Empire, Russia, Sweden, and Austrians vs. Brits, Hanoverians, and Prussians (Frederick II of Prussia).
Francis I (1708-1765), Holy Roman Emperor (1745-1765) and Maria Theresa (1717-1780), Archduchess of Austria and Queen of Hungary and Bohemia
War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748)
Austria vs. France, Prussia, Spain, etc. due to Maria Theresa succession to Habsburg Dominions??
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) German poet
Joseph II (1741-1790), King of Germany (1764-1790), Holy Roman Emperor (1765-1790), co-ruled Austria with his mother, Maria Theresa (1765-1780) at which time he became sole ruler until his death
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) German Philosopher
Prince Klemens Wenzel Nepomuk Lothar von Metternich (1773-1859) Austrian statesman
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) German philosopher
French Revolutionary Wars (1792-1797) Revolutionary France declares war on Austria
1813-Quadruple Alliance-Alliance between Austria, England, Prussia, and Russia against the French.
Napoleonic Wars (Most of Europe vs. France) (1799-1815)
Age of Metternich (1815-1848)
Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898), Prussian Statesman, 1st Chancellor of German Empire
Karl Marx (1818-1883) German Political Philosopher
Friedrich Engels (1820-1895) German Socialist
Gregor Mendel (1822-1884) Austrian Botanist
Henrik Johan Ibsen (1828-1906) Norwegian dramatist/poet
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900) German Philosopher/Poet
Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen (1845-1923) German Physicist
Revolutions of 1848 (Revolutions overtook most of Europe excepting England and Russia)
Metternich was toppled in Revolution of 1848
August Strindberg (1849-1912) Swedish playwright
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) Austrian founder of psychoanalysis
Max Weber (1864-1920) German Sociologist
William (Wilhelm) I (1797-1888), King of Prussia (1861-1888), German Emperor (1871-1888), greatly aided in attainment of his empire by Bismarck!
Austro-Prussian War (Seven Weeks War) (June 15th-August 23rd 1866)
Prussians and Italians vs. Austrians and various German States (Bavaria, Wurtenberg, Saxony, Hanover, and Baden)
Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871-10 months)
Napoleon III vs. Germans (Wilhelm I at instigation of Bismarck)
Archduke Maximilian of Austria (Ferdinand Maximilian Joseph) (1832-1867), Archduke of Austria and Emperor of Mexico (1864-1867)
Thomas Mann (1875-1955) German novelist
Albert Einstein (1879-1955) German/American physicist
William (Wilhelm) II (1859-1941), King of Prussia and Emperor of Germany (1888-1918)
World War I (1914-1918)
Franco-Prussian War almost makes this inevitable. Begins with the Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary by Serbian nationalist in Sarajevo.
Central Powers: Austria-Hungary, Germany, Bulgaria, and OttomanEmpire/Turks vs. Allies: Great Britain, Russia, Italy, France, Belgium, Serbia, Montenegro, and Japan; U.S. enters in 1917. Franz Kafka (1883-1924) Austrian writer
Niels Bohr (1885-1962) Danish Physicist
Ludwig Josef Johan Wittgenstein (1889-1951) Austrian/British Philosopher
Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) German Philosopher
Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) German playwright
Erich Maria Remarque (1898-1970) German Novelist
Werner Karl Heisenberg (1901-1976) German Physicist
Wernher von Braun (1912-1977) German/American Astrophysicist/Engineer
Heinrich Boll (1917-1985) German novelist
Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) German leader (1933-1945)
"Aryanization" of Businesses (1933-1939) Systematic effort to devastate Jews economically.
Concentration Camps in Germany (beginning in 1933)-Dachau, Bergen-Belsen, Ravensbruck (for women), Neuengamme, Mittlebau-Dora, Buchenwald, and Flossenberg.
Spanish Civil War (1936-1939)
General Franco's Nationalist forces (with aid from Italy and Germany) versus Spanish Republic/Communist International Brigade.
Kristallnacht "Night of Broken Glass" (November 9, 1938) A pogrom in which Nazis killed about 100 Jewish people, looted, and set fire to synagogues in Germany as part of the increasing anti-Semitism of Germany under Hitler. This was supposedly done out of revenge for the murder of a German diplomat by a Jewish man.
Finnish-Russian War (1939-1940)
Jewish Ghettos (1939)-Poland's almost 2 million Jews were forced into ghettoes surrounded by walls and barbed wire when the Germans conquered Poland.
Nazi Invasion of USSR (June 1941)-Nazis invade the USSR. Dispatch approximately 3000 men in special units (Einsatzgruppen or "action squads") to kill all Jews in the occupied territory. Rumors of the massacres were heard all over the world.
"Final Solution" of Goering (July 1941)-German Jews forced to wear special badges or armbands of a yellow star of David (by September 1941) and thousands of German Jews were sent to Polish ghettos or cities in the USSR under German control (after September 1941). Death/concentration camps were erected near the Polish ghettos for ease in transporting the Jews. The heaviest deportations occurred in the summer and fall of 1942.
April 1943-Battle fought between the approximately 65,000 Jews remaining in the Warsaw ghetto and the Nazi police during the final roundup. It lasted three weeks.
Holocaust is Greek for "whole" and "burned." The term "Holocaust" originally referred to a religious ritual in which a sacrificial offering was consumed by fire. It has come to mean the point in German history when approximately 6,000,000 Jews, Roma/gypsies, homosexuals, Slavs, Communists, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Catholics were killed or worked to death in concentration camps under Hitler's regime. These death camps were all over Poland. The largest was at Auschwitz-Birkenau (near Krakow). Other death camps were at Kulmhof (Chelmno), Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Stutthof, Plaszow, Gross-Rosen, and Majdanek (Lublin). There were a few other death/concentration camps in other conquered countries, such as Mauthausen in Austria and Terezin in Czechoslovakia. One major aftereffect is the establishment of Israel for those Jews who survived the Holocaust.
Berlin Airlift to Soviet Union-blockaded West Berlin (1948-1949)
East Germany (under Soviet Union control) established (1949)
Berlin Wall (surrounds West Berlin) begun September 1961
Between 1949 and 1961, approximately 2.7 million East Germans fled East Germany. The Berlin Wall was built to stop this. A few East Berliners managed to make it safely across after the Berlin Wall was built, but approximately 80 East Berliners died trying.
Berlin Wall falls (November 9, 1989)
East and West Germany unite in 1990 to become the Federal Republic of Germany.
Kosovo War (Yugoslavian Serbs vs. NATO, mostly U.S.) (1999)
Serbs invaded Kosovo and began to massacre ethnic Albanians (much as they did to the Bosnians in the Bosnian War a few years earlier). NATO (mostly U.S.) Forces bombed several sites (including a Chinese Embassy by accident). Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic eventually agreed to our terms.